Phobia!

As those who have read my past posts know, I am a huge fan of the Discovery Channel. It is always on in my apartment, so I hear all the new shows going on.

Now, before I detail the newest in Discovery Channel learning, let me explain a bit about myself. I have several phobias, one of which is the ocean. I do not like not being able to see what's under the water (and therefore probably headed right for me); I do not like crazy undertows and rip tides that wish to pull me under or out and drown me; I do not like the scary predators that lurk in the depths. Other bodies of water are fine. I'm perfectly fine in a swimming pool. I enjoy lakes and rivers. Until now.

River Monsters is a brand-spanking new show on the Discovery Channel, and it details the monsters that no one knew were lurking in the depths and along the banks of calm rivers and placid lakes. Giant Alligator Gars and humongous catfish and goodness knows what else. Bodies of water? Slowly becoming a bigger phobia for me. Thanks River Monsters!

Priorities

"Mine gets 34 miles per gallon."

"Yeah, but can it crush cars?"

". . ."

Thoughts on Memory Lane

I was eating some candy just now, chewing it up and savoring the sweet and tart flavor, when I began to wonder how my future children would view my everyday sweets. I can already tell that the generation far below me (I'm talking 8 and 9 year olds here) are into gross things that I wouldn't try: sour gel-like candy you squeeze from the tube, purple and green ketchup (ok, not candy, but still! Yuck!) painfully sour hard candies and flavorless sweet lollipops.

It brought my mind back to when I tried a few of the things my own father and grandfather found delicious, and remembered fondly from their own childhoods. For one, my grandfather loved his licorice. Licorice is made from the herb Annice, and after a few tries I found the flavor growing on me. And then there was clove gum, which my dad and grandfather both enjoyed. When I chewed it, I liked the spicy-herbal flavor, but I was baffled as to why it didn't have a "real" flavor: strawberry or cherry. Instead, it was made from herbs, once again. And how could I forget my bout with horehound? My grandfather raved about how delicious it was, but the moment I began to suck on that candy, I wanted to spit it out. Horehound is, again, made from a flowering plant, instead of a sweet fruit like I was used to. In fact, none of what I had tried could have been described as "sweet" which is what I expected from any candy that crossed my lips, unless I decided I was in a "sour" mood.

Of course, the old classic that I don't think will ever phase from generation to generation *fingers crossed!* is Root Beer. It's made from the roots of the sassafras tree, although I'm not so sure they use the real flavoring in more commercial sodas. Still, all of the "old-fashioned" candies and drinks were made from nature; roots and herbs and plants, instead of artificially sweet fruit flavors that my generation enjoys. The older generations had candy made from things that didn't take a lot of steps to make. In fact, I'm pretty sure that if they were out of gum, they probably had cloves handy, or chewed on other things that were readily around and flavored their favored candy. Nowadays, you might want a cherry flavored Popsicle, but eating a real cherry is an entirely different taste experience.

So, will my children make funny faces when I introduce them to Sweet Tarts? Will they complain it's not sweet or sour enough, that it's too powdery or hard? And where will the next generation's taste buds take them, radio-active goo?

If You're Really Bored. . .

In a today's "Website of the Day" post on GeekSugar, it introduced to me a new blog to check out. In a world where being awesome is ideal and also pretty hard, unless it's someone who is not you (seriously, I can't read the blog "With Love" without feeling like a walking fashion disaster/under-achiever), MyLifeIsAverage posts perfectly average moments in everyone's day. Random, and kind of funny sometimes (example: "I heard an ice cream truck drive by. I yelled 'ICE CREAM' in my head, but didn't say anything out loud. MLIA"), it made me think that maybe even the boring bits are worth noting. After all, you take the good with the bad, the meh with the amehzing. My life is average.

Rediscovering Lost Socks

Everyone deals with the same issue: a load of laundry in, a load of laundry out, and several lonely socks left over. Weren't they a pair BEFORE you put them in? They were when you put them on! Two feet equal two socks. And yet, here they lay, socks without a match. Matchless socks.

I stared at my little pile of woebegone socks and wondered what exactly lived in my dryer, snacking on one or the other of the pairs. So, I took all of those lonely socks, and put them BACK in the dryer. Another load goes through and VOILA! Socks that have found their matches. Or so my theory goes. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Maintenance!

So, I've been spending the week cleaning and doing general maintenance about my apartment. I got the entire place cleaned, swept, mopped, scrubbed, and steamed. My carpet looks brand new. I realized that a Kindle actually MIGHT be a good investment, because I sold a ton of books, and I still have to keep a bunch camped on my dining area table because my bookcase is F-U-L-L. My dad bought me some cleaning supplies on Mother's Day (I'm not sure if that was a gift or just him being helpful), so I got to unclog my bathtub drain and I get to scrub the living daylights out of it to get rid of soap scum. FYI, you brunette geekettes out there: those "Sparkling Brunette" shampoos that bring out the "natural, shining chocolate hues" in your wonderful hair? Leaves coloring that sticks to soap scum! Yucky! I also re-attached my bedroom doorknob, since it was loose.

Point of this blog: I am not only a girly geek, but a handy one, too!

Longest. Day. Ever.

Well, yesterday was another shift at work that, on paper, sounds short and sweet, but in reality made me want to poke someone with the scissors, or possibly scream. The worst thing about today's shift was that I slammed my knee into my desk and wanted to cry out at the sheer pain such an impact invoked, but alas, I could not, because there were people testing, and they tend to frown at Lab Assistants disrupting their concentration by screaming in pain. But I would have gladly slammed my knee into the desk again, if it meant that yesterday could have been erased. In order to keep the sanity that yesterday threatened, I ventured again into my own little world of inquiry and speculation, and these are the thoughts that occurred.

• Are those denim?? A customer walks in wearing what looked to be a pair of jeans because of their stitching and style, but they were so stretchy, and the girl who wore them filled them to their stretchiest point, that I found a hard time picturing them as an actual pair of jeans.
  
• At some point, I realized that I had a small patch of hair that was an inch long hanging in front of my very eyes. I kept trying to brush it to either side, but on further investigation, I discovered that they were actually part of my bangs. After a moments consideration, I grabbed above-mentioned scissors, and cut the offending strands relatively level with the rest of my bangs. The *snip* sound was really unsettling, though, since I was pretty sure I could easily screw my hair up.
• Aviators are so. In. I counted at least four people coming in with aviator sunglasses, including a college student that reeked of rich parents, sporting a white pair that I'm sure are very fashionable. For women, metros, and gays. They looked very expensive. Also, why were people wearing sunglasses inside? It was starting to annoy.
• How do haikus go again? Oh yes, five syllables in the first line; seven syllables in the next, and five in the last. Yeah - I totally earned that A in College Lit. Also, now I'm thinking on iambic pentameter. . . Anywho, here's an example of a haiku - Stuck at desk all day, nothing to amuse me but, stupid screen savers. Thanks to Haiku-o-Matic for that oh-so-appropriate poem!

And so my day went. Slowly. thank goodness for my OwnLittleWorld (tm).

Holy Moley!

The newest of my books that I've recently finished was actually based on a TV show, one of my favorites, Burn Notice! I know others who are fans, so I hope this entry is entertaining to them!

Usually, I'm against reading book tie-ins. If it's based on TV, video/computer games, or movies, it's usually crap. However, I happened to spot it on its shelf, and since I was boredly waiting for my dad to finish his browsing, I sat down and took a sneak peek at the first chapter. To my surprise, the book was not based on any existing episode (that I know of), and it was really true to the characters of the actual show. This could be because the author collaborated with the writer of said show.

The Fix, by Tod Goldberg outlines the story of burned spy Michael Westen, his sort of ex-girlfriend, Fiona ("It's complicated"), and his best friend Sam Axe as they go about solving someone's problems in the midst of solving their own. Or really, Michael's own.

I would definitely recommend this fun read to any Burn Notice fan. See if you can tell the difference between the on-screen characters and their written word counter-parts!

I'm a 3 Dimensional Character

Just because it struck me as funny at the time, I thought I'd mention that I'm listening to Slipknot while I look over the newest from cuteoverload.com. Also, Seether and System of a Down.

You just never know what you're gonna get with me.

The Internet Seems Smaller . . .

On a day where things get a little boring, I turn to the internet for entertainment: little games, interesting or funny blogs, new information to learn. It's all there and more! But why can't I find it?!

Each blog I've visited in the past 30 minutes or so has been discontinued, or is so new that I've finished it within five minutes time. I've read all the updates on my Google Reader, and I've checked out Wikipedia for random things to learn, and I am thoroughly bored out of my mind. In times like these, I can only turn to a book, but sometimes I need to take a break *gasp!* from even my current book of choice.

I suppose I'll go see what's on TV, but I can tell even now that that will be a pointless endeavor.

If Only!

Just finished up with the lovely YA book, Inkheart, by Cornelia Funke, a book which made me wish. But first, an overview.

One of the main characters is a strong, brave little girl named Meggie, who discovers through a series of unfortunate events, that her father can read characters OUT of books. Not only that, but he somehow managed to read several very bad men out of a book long ago, replacing those men accidentally by reading her mother and their three cats INTO the book. These men create a little circle of Hell for themselves in the Italian countryside, but years later they finally find "Silvertongue," as they've taken to calling Meggie's father. And their leader, Capricorn, wants him to read others out of the book, including his very special, very evil friend.

Her father escapes, but Meggie is captured, at first as bait, but then she discovers, in the dark of one night while trying to comfort herself with a little bedtime reading, that she has inherited her father's gift. Now they want Meggie to read above mentioned bad friend into existence, in order to execute some of Meggie's own friends. So it's up to her to save the day.

It was a lovely read, with many twists and turns. It also made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside because it managed to convey exactly how I, myself, feel about books, the written word. Now as for my wish, instead of reading characters OUT of books, wouldn't it be great if I could read myself into stories? Who hasn't wanted to play main character in their favorite novel?!

Finally

I know that it has taken me a little longer to post this newest review, but consider for a moment the fact that it is Stephen King I am talking about here, and that the book I have finished is none other than the completed, unedited version of The Stand, which is over 1,000 pages long. And those letters weren't exactly typed in your average-sized print, either.

Imagine a world where humans have determined their own fate, where one man and his family can spread a highly communicable disease that takes over the world, destroying millions of people in a painful and quick fashion. Only a few are immune, and those few start to gather. But there are two sides to this story: Some gather in the East, and some gather in the West. Those who gather with the Dark Man are themselves loaded with evil, and those who gather with Mother Abigail have to consider that there is, in fact, a God, and that he has decided to help the human race to stand against evil, before that evil can obliterate all that is good.

In this world not far off from our own, you meet some pretty good characters, and some pretty twisted characters. No one is safe from the scythe of death either, to my annoyance, but such is the way of King, I suppose. This is one of those books that will get you thinking, wondering about the significance of this, and marveling at how neatly that ties together. A good read, if you can handle Stephen King's dark and ruthless writing.

Young Adult Foray

I'm not a big fan on YA books, but my sister sent me Coraline, by Neil Gaiman, with many good things to say, and so i decided to give it a try. It was just the kind of weird-quirky I used to love as a kid.

Coraline, the heroine, finds a door in her drawing room that seems to lead to nothing, but one day, it leads to something. Another world with another mother and another father that do not mean what they say, and want her to stay forever and always. To make it so, they have taken her real parents. So, brave quick-witted Coraline must find her parents, along with a few other things, in order to escape. But can she really escape?

This novel brought to mind all the out-there bizarre novels that take me to worlds that cannot be, and yet are within the pages of one book. I've read an excerpt from an upcoming novel of his that promises more of the same. I completely applaud the truly imaginative and creative skills of story-tellers like Gaiman.

Mystery, Anyone?

Another book done and done. Deja Dead, by Kathy Reichs, is the first in a series of detective novels in which the main character, Temperance Brennan, solves mystery in her field of forensic anthropology. If any of this sounds familiar, it's because the hit TV series Bones is based on these books.

In the first of this gritty, tough series, Brennan must work to find a killer with a lot of rage toward women. Although there is no outward sign that they are connected, except for the brutal way in which they are killed, Brennan feels that these deaths are all caused by the same killer. And so begins her quest to connect the dots and get those above her in the chain of command to see that these are serial cases. Unfortunately, as she works to find the killer, the killer has already found her. . .

This novel was a lot grittier and more explicit than the TV series, which happens to be one of my favorite shows. As is usual with written works, there was a lot more leeway for language and descriptions than there is for TV. The main character, however, was smart as a whip, tough, and brave. I liked her as much as her on screen portrayal, even though they were not portrayed in the same manner.

IIIIII-Ron-YYYYYY! (That Spells Irony)

Today on Discovery Channel, they're doing a bit of a boring documentary on the state of things in China. The biggest economic growth in China is coal mining. Thousands of workers break their backs in the mines, breathing bad air and risking their lives to provide for their families, because the coal mining industry is just booming over there. It's one of the reasons they are growing economically, and economic growth is a top priority in China. In 2006, 47 miners died in the U.S of mining related accidents. 47,000 miners died the same year of mining related accidents in China.

This is all very sad to me, especially when I think of the families-wives and children who must worry that their husbands and fathers may not return. It's not just a dangerous field in China, it is a dangerous field in the U.S. Yes, the death rate was smaller here, but so is the amount of workers in such a field.

What I happened to find truly ironic about this, however, was that in the middle of a commercial break during this documentary outlining the atrocious conditions of mining, a certain commercial popped on. Maybe you've seen it. Obama, with his usual charisma and crowd of worshipers cheering him on, is calling for a "change." No more relying on outside countries for our fuel sources, no! Instead, we should concentrate our efforts on trying to find a way to use COAL as our fuel, instead of oil. It could create jobs for thousands! It could stimulate our economy!
Tell me I'm not the only that has just compared our President's intentions with those of Communist China's. . .